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Tips to reduce your health cover premium over a period of time

It is essential for you to go through the policy premium rates from time to time.

Avinash, a businessman, knows how to deal with all kinds of clients. However, his inexperience in finding good health insurance policies has landed him in trouble a couple of times.

In the recent past, he hasn?t been able to keep an eye on the rising premiums of his health coverage and ended up spending much more than he should have. It is essential for you to go through the policy premium rates from time to time. Several strategies can be adopted for reducing the premium over a period of time.

Rising health insurance policy premiums could be devastating because you would end up spending a big part of your income in paying them. We buy a health insurance policy to secure our future in case of a medical emergency. Even if you can?t control expenses with respect to sickness, you can definitely control the rising health cover premiums.

Avoid a policy with claim holding

Insurance firms are known to charge a huge amount of premium to cover the client, considering it is going to cover the entire cost if the policy benefits are claimed. Sometimes, when you claim the policy benefits, your insurance provider hikes the premiums for the next year. So, it becomes imperative to go for an insurance policy that entails lower burden.

For keeping a tab on premiums, it is recommended to opt for a family floater policy. These coverage policies can be taken for all your family members. They are much cheaper as the premiums are divided and you have to pay on an individual basis.

Family floater insurance policies come with a two-year waiting period and some of the diseases/disorders that are covered during that time are all kinds of duodenal or gastric ulcers, sinuses, hemorrhoids, fibromyoma, hysterectomy, cataracts, endometriosis, hernia, etc.

Opt for a policy with high top-up/deductible

People often make the mistake of going for policies with low deductibles. Overlooking the advantages of health coverage with a fairly high deductible/top-up can prove to be expensive. Here, you just have to pay a certain amount of medical cost before your insurance provider reimburses the remaining amount on your behalf. This is the way by which you can keep a check on the rising premiums. The co-payment method can be included under this head as it is common with people using group insurance policies.

Always conduct research on the company?s policy regarding age of the client. A younger person can acquire an insurance coverage at a much affordable rate than an older one. So, try and understand how much the age factor influences a company?s plan to hike the premiums from time to time. Consider the insurer?s policy of hiking premium rates in a particular age group. Once your insurance provider decides to hike the premium rates in a specific age group of the insured clients and you observe that you too are falling in the same group, then things can get really frustrating. This happens quite often and you can?t do anything about it as you?ll have to bear with the increased rates. However, one thing that you can do is to study the extent of the rise so that you can manage your funds accordingly.

* The writer is CEO, BankBazaar.com

Points to note

* Opt for a family floater policy. They are much cheaper as the premiums are divided and you have to pay on an individual basis

* Opt for a policy with high top-up/deductible. Here, you just have to pay a certain amount of medical cost before your insurance provider reimburses the remaining amount on your behalf

* Always conduct research on the company?s policy regarding age of the client. Try and understand how much the age factor influences a company?s plan to hike the premiums from time to time

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First published on: 25-02-2014 at 10:12 IST
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